SeriousPlayPro Academy – Summary of the 1st Day

Today we started with the first SeriousPlayPro Academy in Tallinn, Estonia. The Academy is targeted towards university students. It will last for 1 month and will consist of:

In-depth training on LEGO Serious Play methodology and materials

Discussion with some SeriousPlayPro.com community members – classes and interviews

Crafting new ideas on how to improve SeriousPlayPro community and updated value proposition of the community

Focusing on the “Next Generation”. Making LEGO Serious Play methodology easily accessible to younger people.

The first day started with basic LEGO Serious Play methodology skills building. Two participants – Merilyn Ohtla and Karen Künnapas did some traditional practice of LEGO Serious Play methodology training. This included technical building skills, ability to use colourful metaphors while representing the models and finally telling comprehensive stories with the help of just few bricks.

Once the skills building was done and over with, the participants also practiced the skills to facilitate the exercises of others. They built the future of education. They decided to discuss the opportunities how to improve teaching methodologies.

In the content side of LEGO Serious Play training, they decided to focus on building individual models and thereafter a shared model about the current situation of a secondary school. Finally, they built the shared model and Vision 2020 of the future of education. Before the wrap-up of the day, Merilyn and Karen concluded by also adding various stakeholders of the school to the landscape.

The thoughts of the participants from the first day of SeriousPlayPro.com Academy:

“I remember mostly three things. First of all it was like jumping into the water at a location we did not know. Second was seriousness of this whole day – we did some serious in-depth work. And ultimately, we had fun and we laughed, too. It was certainly going out of the comfort zone, except for taking a critical look at how to improve our school. “– Merilyn Ohtla

“I started experiencing and understanding how thinking works differently when you use your hands. It was fun that while we might be different, we still managed to discuss about our school in a similar manner. During building our shared model we had similar ideas where we complemented each other. It felt as if we managed to solve the problems of our school in just 2 minutes that the others have not managed to do within 20 years. It was also a stretch task to tell our stories to video.” – Karen Künnapas

See below the videos and the photo gallery. During the next days we will keep a blog of SeriousPlayPro Academy.